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Shifting Perspectives: How to raid as a balance druid
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. If there is one thing that avid readers may know about me, it is that I have a huge tendency to push players to become less single-minded. In any game that I play (particularly MMOs), I despise the one-sided nature that most players fall into. The mind set that "I am a DPSer, I am here to DPS, all I do is DPS" is highly pervasive within the gaming community -- and frankly, I want to break that concept so hard that it hurts. No matter what class or spec it is that you may play, you always bring more to the table than your prescribed role. DPSers especially have far more utility than they realize. It's time that players wake up to this, and that is exactly what I intend to facilitate in this week's article. Playing balance is exceptionally fun. You bring fantastic damage to any raid group, but you also bring so much more than that. Want to be a better raider -- no, want to be a better player in general? Then read on!
Shifting Perspectives: The druid personality test
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we are impressed by the scientific rigor of human interest publications. So I was in line at the grocery store the other day when the array of magazines at the checkout stand caught my eye. Useless People Weekly was running a quiz that promised to tell you things you already knew about yourself if you would consent to answer several questions and tally the results. "Huh," said I. "What a marvelously scientific approach." But it gave me, as they say, ideas. If you've never played a druid before, are you interested in knowing which spec best suits your personality? If you play a druid, are you interested in being told things you already know about yourself?
Shifting Perspectives: Balance druid gearing from Firelands
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. A few weeks ago, we talked about the various items that you can get from the new daily quests as well as items that you can get from the new raid faction, all of which are really good things. This week will be about new valor point items and items that you can get from boss drops themselves. While gearing is a little bit different in this expansion than it has been in previous expansions, there is still a little bit of choice and options involved. Before getting started, the first thing that we need to keep in mind is not to forgo items from the previous tier. Tier 11 gear is still really, really good, and if there are slots that you could still use from that raid, then I would highly suggest trying to find ways to go back and get them. Firelands isn't a cakewalk for most guilds out there, so it is important that you gear yourself as best as you possible can. With the change to justice points and the nerf to the actual raid content, it shouldn't be too difficult to get your hands on a lot of the items.
Shifting Perspectives: Haste and you -- a guide to not wanting to kill yourself
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we had to Google the Goldilocks story because we kept getting it wrong. Once upon a time, a blogger ventured into a magical forest in search of a stat known as haste. In the forest, there was a cottage where a family of three bears -- Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear -- all lived. So the blogger -- "Hey, wait a minute," said the bears. "We don't care about haste. Haste is terrible. Clear off." So the blogger left the bears' cottage and ventured deeper into the forest, eventually finding a family of trees, which was interesting insofar as the forest was itself comprised of trees, and by all rights, this made no sense. Like the bears, the trees were a family unit with the requisite Papa Tree, Mama Tree, and Baby Tree. Fortunately for the blogger, the trees were out on a walk (just work with me here) when she arrived, and she sat down to sample the dinner they had left behind. "Haste!" said the blogger, delighted at her discovery. "The trees like haste!" She sat at Papa Tree's plate. "He has too much haste," she said. She sat at Mama Tree's plate. "She has too little haste," she said. She sat at Baby Tree's plate. "This haste is just right!" she said and gobbled it up. "There's no such thing as too much haste," said Papa Tree outside the window, observing the loss of his offspring's dinner. "And do you have Dark Intent? I think you'll find that my wife's haste is -- " "You can have too much haste," argued Mama Tree. "How much do you have right now? Didn't you just pass the breakpoint for a ninth tick of Wild Growth? Why aren't you focusing on mastery? It -- " And so the blogger sprinted out of the magical forest and threw herself in front of a magical train, sobbing on her way to mortal oblivion, "I was told that there would be no math in this expansion!"
Shifting Perspectives: Patch 4.2 impressions as a balance druid
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. The patch has been out for a few days now, and surprisingly, it went extrodanarily well. Not saying that Blizzard is bad or it sucks at patching, but I don't think there was ever a major content patch, especially one that introduced a raid, in which everyone was actually able to raid that day. Not only that, but maintainence wasn't even extended for hours upon hours. Everything went well, at least on the technical end. For druids -- well, it was a bit of a different experience. Going into this patch, we knew that we were in for some changes, but there was some hope that Blizzard might at least do those changes correctly, that it would at least attempt to address the problems it sought to fix. Alas, we were not so lucky. Despite that, balance druids adapted, evolved, and carry on as we always do. Here's how.
Shifting Perspectives: Faction rewards for balance in 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. So, I guess there is going to be this whole patch thing coming out soon. It's great and all if you haven't heard about it: tons of new daily quests, a new faction, a new raid. There's also this awesome legendary staff involved, although I'm really not a staff person. It's not that I dislike them so much as I really prefer my one-handed weapon and off-hand. Maybe it's some residual shaman rubbing off on me or something. Past the staff gripe, I need to bring another issue forward. This patch brings in two new "grinds" that players will be involved in. Both of these are essentially druid factions in one form of another, and frankly I find it offensive that we have to bother with gaining reputation or gather marks like the other, lesser classes. We're druids, they're druids, isn't there some kind of code that says we should just be given these things? Totally not fair. See if I defend Moonglade next Lunar Festival. With that in mind, let's take a look at some of faction rewards that you can get in the next patch to help with our goal of destroying critters. In the name of nature, of course.
Shifting Perspectives: Analyzing patch 4.2's feral DPS changes
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our weekly feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin! I was done. Really, I was. I was going to use this deployment to catch up on some reading, maybe a few PSP/DS games that I never got around to finishing, regular geek stuff. (Infinite Space + DS = win.) I was content. Then came FIRECAT. An item that finally makes me stand out from the hunter pets? CAT DURID IS 4 FIER! Here's hoping they don't extend this to the other forms; last thing we need is names like Smokey for bears, Firewood for trees, and, um, Extra Tasty Crispy for moonkin. I'm sold. Here's my $15, Blizz; I'm coming back, 4-digit pings or no. Onward!
Shifting Perspectives: Guide to patch 4.2 for bear and tree druids
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we've returned from the Angry Dome. Well, after pissing off Blizzard for the millionth week in a row, today we're going to turn our attention to slightly less explosive concerns. By the way, "Tank Q&A sucks" is a top search phrase for last week's Shifting. Just thought I'd mention. As long as we're on the subject of the developer Q&As, I might as well make an uncomfortable segue to observing that Blizzard's now taking queries for the Q&A on healers. Go ask questions! Personally I am very interested in hearing if they're going to update Tree of Life form, or make Innervate a baseline ability rather than the 31-point talent in the restoration tree. Ha ha! I kid because I love. On the off chance that patch 4.2 hits today (which it probably won't, but eh), this is a quick and dirty guide to the patch notes that'll concern you if you play a bear or tree druid. If the patch hits next week, we'll keep ourselves occupied making daisy chains or something. Or, if the healer Q&A gets published sooner than expected, I'll write another enraged diatribe for everyone to enjoy.
Shifting Perspectives: Building a better AOE balance druid rotation
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Last week, we talked about the fine art of gaming Eclipse, annoying as it might be. To play a balance druid is an excessively fun experience; to try and deal chart topping damage as one is going to leave you pulling out your hair. Although the so-called "skill cap" for balance is prohibitively high, never let it discourage you from actually playing the spec. Getting getting to the high damage part of the spec takes some work, but after time it becomes second nature; tweaking Eclipse to work for you just becomes a habit that you do without thinking. That aside, this week we'll be getting into what's honestly the best part of playing as balance. AOE takes just as much work as balance, but it's a fun type of work and comes with a really sweet pay off. Balance has some of the strongest sustained AOE in the game; now you can enjoy it too.
Shifting Perspectives: Why the tank Q&A sucked
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we started writing this column last Wednesday. Don't get me wrong: It's not that I don't like the developer Q&A sessions. They're a great idea, and although they don't make up for Ghostcrawler's absence from the forums, they're a nice insight into the developers' thought process and a peek at the issues that matter most to players. The effort's appreciated even when players ask pointless questions (of which the need to do so appears to be a congenital disorder) or use the opportunity to grandstand about issues no one cares about. But the tank Q&A was ... not Blizzard's best effort. To borrow a phrase from Harry Knowles, I love hard-working Blizzard, I'm blown away by creative Blizzard, and I'm in awe of big-dreaming and overreaching Blizzard. But I freaking hate lazy Blizzard.
Shifting Perspectives: Building a better balance druid rotation -- gaming Eclipse
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Out of all of the emails that I get, out of all of the posts that I see on the official forums and other sites, the single most common problem that people have as a balance druid is damage -- which for as a damage-dealing spec only makes sense, right? I mean, it would be a little bit weird if the largest problem we saw from balance druids was that they weren't tanking well enough or something. The thing is, most of these people aren't "bads." More often than not, these aren't people who haven't a clue how to spec, gear, or enchant. They probably do follow the rotation that's listed on the official forums sticky or in one of my guides. All in all, these aren't bad players -- they just can't seem to get something right. Something isn't clicking. Well, let's talk about what that something is.
Shifting Perspectives: Why there are moonkin in the world
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Owlbears, I spend an awful lot of time discussing Eclipse and the various ways that I'm just a little bit unhappy with the system of DPS that we have. To be quite honest, I'm tired. For one day, can't we all just be faceroll arcane mages, casting nothing but Arcane Blast, maybe a Missiles here and there? I'd really like that, really I would. I don't think anything would quite make my day as that would. Alas, it is not to be. The real question is why anyone should bother their pretty little heads playing possibly the fattest characters in WoW. Face it, folks: Moonkin are huge. And despite what some people may have been saying lately, it seems we do have friends -- or at least people who are willing to keep our fluffy feathers around. Which, you know ... I'll take that.
Shifting Perspectives: Revisiting the disappearance of the bear
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, an old and ugly issue rears its head. I published Shifting Perspectives: The disappearance of the bear in October 2009 during patch 3.2.2. It was a means of collecting and examining eight common arguments as to why bear players had vanished during Wrath of the Lich King, and the column resulted in a number of insightful comments from readers on the issue. I decided it was time to revisit that column and ask: Have things improved in Cataclysm, gotten worse, or not changed much at all? I have to preface this by stating that we have no hard information on what spec populations look like right now, and it's possible that this column's been written about an issue that's resolving. However, I don't think that's the case. Bear players are still the least represented on the tanking forums, their thread on Elitist Jerks is usually a ghost town, and their appearances through the Dungeon Finder -- at least from what I've seen of it -- are few and far between. Insofar as the Call to Arms system is a sideways acknowledgment of the shortage of 5-man tanks, the apparent lack of bear players (and quite possibly blood death knights as well) is a concern to more people than just druids.
Shifting Perspectives: How raid progression affects balance gearing
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Gearing a boomkin has always been a strange lot of juggling and switching and planning. For every raiding tier, there comes a new list of items that are the absolute best in terms of damage. All of us wish that we could have best-in-slot everything, but the reality is that this is very rarely the case for even the very best players. Instead, most of us merely have to make the best with what we are able. As the next raiding tier is poised to be released, I think now is the perfect time to remind ourselves of a few very important gearing principles. Getting the best-in-slot is fantastic; getting the best-for-now is far better.
Shifting Perspectives: Examining the tier 12 set bonuses
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This week, we preview tier 12. Hey, folks. Today's going to be a slightly shorter edition of Shifting (say that three times fast), as I'm a little under the weather, but I've been wanting to take a peek at the upcoming tier 12 set bonuses for bears and resto. As a quick update to a previous post, I occasionally get into trouble in this column by assuming that feral changes are only ever going to concern bears. We were spoiled by having Chase Hasbrouck (also known as Alaron of The Fluid Druid) around recently to cover the cat portion of Shifting Perspectives. The strength nerf in patch 4.2 is in fact a noticeable nerf to our cat brethren, even if it's not going to affect bears quite so much. Kalon's comment is a good explanation as to why. On that note, we're now looking for a new kitty columnist, so please apply if you're interested!
Shifting Perspectives: DOT changes for balance druids
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Oh druids, my lovely little space chickens, I am frankly at a loss. I am at the end of my rope, so to speak. For a while there, I thought I had Blizzard all figured now -- but now? Now, the developers are throwing curve balls left and right, and I just don't know what's going on any more. Things are changing. They want to change something ... But what is it that they are looking to change? We've all seen the previous changes that attempted to break our multi-DOTing and the random running around in a Solar Eclipse spamming Sunfire. Shortly thereafter (probably due to the numerous reports that the system was absolutely terrible, by all accounts), it was changed once again. Now I don't know what it is that Blizzard is attempting to break anymore, and I don't even feel like guessing. Don't believe me? Take a look.
Shifting Perspectives: The future non-suck of mastery
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we contemplate the possibility of writing a future article on predictions that came true, because goddamn, we're amazing. One of these days I really ought to write an edition of Shifting that's nothing but a smug-a-thon on how much I've been able to get right. That this necessitates ignoring the 95% that I get wrong is somewhat troublesome if you're one of those people who gets hung up on the ephemeral phenomenon sometimes known as "accuracy," but a good writer never lets the truth stand between herself and a great story. On this occasion, I am pleased to say -- to a legion of people who could reasonably have expected an upcoming change anyway -- I told you so. Booyeah!
Shifting Perspectives: First look at balance druid tier 12 bonuses
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. Right then -- on the off chance that you happened to miss the massive rant that was last week's Shifting Perspectives, made in reaction to the horrible, horrible changes that Blizzard had originally planned for balance ... ,you don't quite have to read it. Actually you should read it, because the reasoning behind the change is still there and Blizzard is going to try something to make it happen, but that specific method is off the table for the time being. There's already a new attempt out, but frankly, I don't think it's worth spending every single week hammering down a new flop on the same tired design. Instead, I think it's rather a good time to take a first little glance at our newest tier set bonuses that were datamined about a week ago. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of datamined information; it's nice to look at, but it can often be incomplete or missing perspective that allows it to make sense. This is a bit different, though; it's spell data pulled straight from Wowhead, so it should be rather spot on. Doesn't mean it's final though, so do keep that in mind.
Shifting Perspectives: Mana wars, crowd control and patch 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we swap Innervates with a new air of defiance. The most interesting part of the proposed patch 4.2 changes is arguably what's being done to crowd control, but that's not the only addition to the game that's going to affect us. At the moment, there actually aren't a metric ton of changes in store for druids, but I expect that itself will change. As a quick update to my ongoing TankWatch project, I returned to some dungeon-running on my alts between the patch 4.1 and 4.2 PTRs. As of evening Monday on May 9, this is what I've seen of tank representation through the low-level dungeon finder: Druid 9% Paladin 60% Warrior 31% My goblin priest should hit Outland soon, so we'll see what impact death knights wind up having on the statistics.
Shifting Perspectives: A first look at balance druids in patch 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Balance news comes at you every Friday -- learn how to master the forces of nature, and know what it means to be a giant laser turkey! Send your questions, comments, or something you'd like to see to tyler@wowinsider.com. If you keep tabs on the goings-on in the WoW world, then you probably know by now that the initial notes for the upcoming raid patch 4.2 have already been released. While 4.0.6 was supposed to be the large rebalancing patch for Cataclysm and many classes didn't see any significant changes during 4.1, it seems as though Blizzard may have broken down and changed course for this next installment. There isn't yet much information released in the current patch notes, and most classes aren't seeing any changes as of yet, but balance druids are certainly looking at something that is going to vastly shake up their current playstyle. This is the earliest release of the PTR, and things are probably going to change, but one thing about the PTR is that feedback needs to be given, no matter how absurd or unlikely the change might be.
